


A Better Disaster

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Gen, tags will be updated with every chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: It seems like every time Rey's curiosity gets the better of her, the bond opens up and drags a staring, fumbling Kylo Ren with it.(A.K.A. Four Times Rey Didn't Want Kylo Watching, and One Time She Did)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the young ’uns out there, the beginning of this chapter glamourizes alcohol and being drunk, but be aware that next chapter deals with the consequences of over-indulging. Of which there are many. Drink responsibly, darlings.
> 
> Not much else to say except I am an anthropomorphic trash heap ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Alcohol is _great_.

Rey _loves_ alcohol.

Why hasn’t she tried this before?

Her body feels weightless, like every sorrow that dragged it down has simply evaporated. All of her grief and sadness feels so far away right now. Her world is encompassed by Poe’s grin and offhand jokes. With a hand held in the air and a breathless voice, the pilot tells the tales of nights spent in off-world cantinas and the mishaps that ensued there. The table around Rey roars with laughter. Finn’s eyes scrunch up in mirth. Rose is doubled over. Connix’s hand slaps the table. Rey’s chest aches as she joins in with them. She can’t remember ever being happier. What does it matter that she usually hangs around the outskirts of the Resistance? Tonight, she is one of them. She feels such a deep gratitude towards Finn for dragging her out to the base’s mess hall that she’s tempted to clutch his hands and thank him.

She can’t, because his hands are entwined with Rose’s.

Tomorrow, that might hurt. Tonight, it’s fine. Rey doesn’t care about her loneliness anymore. Rey doesn’t care about anything anymore. Whatever drink Poe has continuously poured for her has stripped her of anything as basic and mundane as feelings. She’s freedom enshrined in a human body. She could be anything, do anything. She could take on the entire First Order with the way she’s feeling right now.

(Rey’s glass misses her mouth the next time she tries to take a gulp, and she acknowledges that taking on the entire First Order might be a bit optimistic.)

A new conversation has sprung up while Rey was lost in thought. She turns to the side, eager to be a part of whatever it is, but the low murmur of voices is between Finn and Rose alone. They swap small, private smiles that tell an unnoticed Rey that she is not invited to this chat. Well, that’s fine. Rey shifts back around to Poe. He’s in the middle of another story that involves gesturing wildly to a smitten Connix. Connix laughs in all the right places, and Poe grins in ego-boosted delight.

A switch flips inside Rey’s happiness. Like a gut punch, she suddenly feels like an intruder to everyone else’s camaraderie. Is that how they think of her, too? As an outsider who misses all the social cues? She’s not usually as quick to laugh as the rest of whatever group she finds herself in, and there are lots of references she doesn’t understand. She used to have Finn by her side in this obliviousness, but recently Rose has been helping him to understand some of the more general snippets of popular culture. Now Finn laughs right on beat, just like everyone else.

Rey’s shoulders slump. She wants to be alone to wallow.

She rises to her unsteady feet and braces a hand on the table top for support. The slap of her palm against metal draws the group’s attention.

“You doing okay there, Rey?” Finn asks, concern seeping into his unfocused eyes.

“M’fine,” Rey says, trying for a smile. “Just tired.”

“Yeah, this stuff’ll do that,” Poe says with a snort. He upends the bottle into his empty cup anyway and then offers it around. “You gonna be alright getting back?”

“I can walk you?” Rose offers. She leans back in her chair in preparation to stand.

“My room is three minutes away,” Rey says, waving off the concern with the same slight mistrust she still feels every time anyone wants to do something nice for her. Rose’s hopeful expression falls. Rey clears her throat, feeling both guilty and awkward. “But, um, thanks.”

She really needs to make more of an effort with Rose. Finn likes her a lot, and Rey likes Finn a lot. It should be a no-brainer. It _would_ be a no-brainer, for anyone else. Anyone who has any idea what they’re doing in a single social situation. That same sad shroud from earlier descends back on Rey.

“Go and sleep it off,” Poe says with a chuckle.

Rey gives an approximation of an ironic salute and bids goodbye. The journey into the outside corridors is a graceless stagger which she hopes no one will ever see. At least there’ll be few witnesses this late at night. Or early in the morning. Rey’s not sure what time it is. Either way, if the Resistance’s newest members see their Jedi savior in this state then all of Leia’s careful recruitment programs would have been for nothing. Rey can’t save the galaxy like this. She can barely input her code to her private room without it beeping in shrill anger.

“ _Shh!_ ” she implores her keypad. Scowling at the damned thing doesn’t work, but another attempt – or two – does. Rey puts her weight against the door and stumbles through it. Dim lights flicker on automatically. They’re a welcome relief after the harsh industrial lights of the compound’s corridors. Rey closes the door behind her with a little too much enthusiasm. She swears under her breath as her shoulder bumps into the solid metal.

The alcohol swirls inside Rey’s stomach. Her head falls forward against the door with a dull thud. The ache reverberates until she groans in displeasure. When did being drunk stop being fun? She wanted a few more hours of feeling weightless. Now she feels nauseated, her head hurts, and even the air feels –

No.

Wait.

Alcohol isn’t supposed to change air pressure, right?

 Rey groans again as she recognizes the new presence in her room. Of all the times for the Supreme Leader to make his first grand appearance since Crait, he has to do it while Rey’s three sheets to the wind.

Well, Rey reasons as she hefts herself upright, it’s not like she still can’t kick his ass if she has to. She holds onto that anger and uses it to quash any lingering sadness and regret that the alcohol hasn’t managed to drown yet. It’s an effort; turns out those damn emotions are buoyant.

Rey turns around to face Her Enemy.

No, not _Her_ Enemy. The Enemy. The General, Non-Possessive-Indicating Enemy.

He doesn’t look like an enemy. He stands hunched, almost drawn in on himself as he gazes at her from across the room. What should be outright antagonism on his features is instead wariness, tinged with something soft and sad. The expression makes him look younger. It makes him look –

It doesn’t matter. He’s a murderer and a tyrant and a – just really bad person. Rey isn’t going to think of him as anything else. She takes a step forward and ignores how she wobbles. Her chin is up, her stance is strong, her glare is blistering.

“Kylo Ben,” she says.

Then pauses.

Thinks.

Scowls.

“Shit, no. I – _Ren._ Kylo _Ren_.”

Kylo’s eyebrows knit together. Rather than dwell on her slip, Rey glances over to her staff leaning against one of the regulation-sized shelves. She lunges for it, her mind filled with half-formed plans of attack and defense, but her fingers fumble against the edge of the staff. The accidental push tips the weapon away from her. Her fingers close against empty air as the staff clatters to the floor.

“Oh, _kriff_ ,” Rey mutters. “Give me a second…”

“Are you drunk?”

Kylo’s bewildered tone makes Rey pause on her way down to the floor. She straightens up, outraged.

“ _No!_ ” she insists. Then, because she can practically feel flat disbelief radiating from Kylo, she adds, “I had _a_ cup.”

“Hmm. The Resistance certainly kept the existence of a magical refilling cup under wraps.”

Rather than dignify that with an answer, Rey bends down to scoop her staff back up. She misses, and her fingers end up squashing into the floor instead. Great. Much more dignified. She probably wouldn’t even fight back if Kylo tried to kill her at this point. It’d be the less embarrassing option.

As Rey stands up, Kylo sighs deeply.

“What’s the matter with _you_?” Rey snipes.

“I’m just contemplating the fact that there’s a military faction out there who manages to evade me at every turn, and _you’re_ at the head of it.”

“I’m not the head,” Rey says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not even the shoulders. I’m more around the stomach area.”

Kylo makes a choked sound that might have started out as a laugh.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he says. His voice is flat but there’s a glint in his eyes that might have been humor from anyone else. “The stomach area is important.”

“I _know_ that.”

It doesn’t even matter that she was trying to speak in metaphors. Does he really think she doesn’t know how important the stomach area is? She almost starved to death on Jakku more than once. _Of course_ she knows how important the stomach area is. He’s such an idiot. She hates him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Rey mutters as she tears a rubber band out of her hair. “I don’t want you here.”

“I know.” Kylo’s quiet words are touched with something Rey doesn’t want to think about. It’s far better when he adds an imperious, “I can’t help it. Your mental shields are down.”

“Aren’t yours?”

“No.” Kylo makes a convincing show of examining a spot behind Rey’s shoulder. “Not since we...”

There are a few ways to end that sentence, and Rey doesn’t care for any of them. Her drunken self is just as determined as her sober self is to push away the memories of soft firelight and rough fingertips brushing against her own. Whenever her thoughts stray to the throne room battle, she allows herself a moment of pride for holding her own against Snoke’s personal guards, but nothing more. Sometimes her chest twinges ( _“Don’t do this, Ben”_ ) and she doesn’t know why ( _“Please don’t go this way”_ ) and so she shoves the heaviness down along with the rest of her sorrow.

“That was a mistake,” Rey says, choosing a blanket statement instead of addressing any one thing individually.

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

Kylo makes a thoughtful sound that’s far softer than his expression. “I couldn’t have appeared to you if you weren’t thinking about me.”

Rey shakes her head. She hadn’t been thinking about him specifically (had she? The last few minutes are blurring together) but she worries that there’s a part of her mind, cordoned off with bright red tape that screams _DANGER!_ , which is always busy with thoughts about him.

But she’ll die before she tells Kylo that, so she glares at him instead.

“You don’t know that,” she says.

“I suspect,” Kylo replies with a shrug.

“Your suspects don’t mean anything.”

It’s the way she says it, with her emphasis on the second syllable of ‘suspects’ rather than the first, that breaks the tense atmosphere. Kylo’s mouth twitches, as though he’s fighting a smile. Or, more likely, that he wants to smile but his muscles have long since forgotten how.

“My sus _pects_?” he repeats, echoing her unusual emphasis.

“Suspicions. Whatever. Go away.”

Rey waves a hand at him and hopes that he will listen to her, _for once_. She is definitely not at peak performance to be sparring with him, verbally or otherwise. Nothing she looks at stays in a fixed place. Her eyes drift from their focus, like she’s getting distracted even from things she’s determined to fixate on.

Which is –

Which is probably not great.

In fact, alcohol itself is seeming more and more probably not great. Her stomach feels overfull, like that time she guzzled too much water too quickly as a child on Jakku and promptly retched it all back up again. Whereas then she had been too excited by the unexpected windfall of charity workers visiting Jakku, Rey’s only excuse tonight was some vague need to prove herself a part of something that wasn’t galaxy altering. For one night, it was nice just to be someone’s friend. Not a Jedi, not a hero, not someone’s last hope or morality chain. Just Rey. And lots of alcohol. Of course even this tiny attempt at normality has backfired. Doesn’t everything backfire on her eventually?

Rey’s eyes fill up, and this is the last straw. She is _not_ crying in front of Kylo Ren. At least, not again. She has to get to bed and sleep away whatever the hell is going on with her emotions.

As though this thought had summoned something, a wash of exhaustion comes over Rey. _Oh_ , but her cot looks inviting. She could just slump onto the covers without even curling up inside them. They were soft enough to lull her to sleep, especially with her eyes already half-lidded from tiredness.

“Have you ever been drunk before?”

Rey almost groans at the reminder of Kylo’s presence. How has he not left yet? She puts one careful foot in front of the other until her knees nudge the edge of her thin mattress.

“No,” she answers him.

Kylo winces in what might be real sympathy. “You’re in for a rough morning, then. You should drink some water.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Rey grumbles as she collapses onto her bed.

Lying down doesn’t help the uncertain churning in her stomach. But it will. She’ll be fine. Poe had told her to sleep it off, and he wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t think it would work. Rey has heard of people complaining of the after-effects of drinking, but that must have been from drinking in excess. Rey hadn’t drank _that_ much. She just needs to sleep, and the next morning she’ll wake up feeling fresh.

She hears a soft, almost fond snort before sleep pulls her down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Hello it has been weeks and I am sorry)
> 
> Thank you for your feedback on the first chapter! This chapter deals with hangovers and all of their charming side effects. I took kind-of-crack and turned it into kind-of-angst because this is my life and these are my choices. Enjoy!

 

* * *

  
  
The room around Rey is fuzzy as she opens her eyes. Her head isn’t doing too great either, and her stomach…

She groans and rolls over, tangling the sheets in her too-warm body as she does. Her stomach lurches again at the movement. Rey lies still, frozen in the unfairness of it all. There was no way she drank enough to feel _this_ bad. Has she been poisoned? Maybe the Resistance was infiltrated by First Order spies who decided to take out the last Jedi the cowardly way. It doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing Kylo Ren would order, but –

A memory rocks through Rey. Kylo had been here, in her room, last night. Rey quickly scans the dim room as though he could still be lingering in the shadows, but of course there’s no one there. Her rush of adrenaline fizzles out and her hangover waltzes back in. There are blank patches in her memory of last night, but Rey is confident that she’s reinforced the walls she had let the ghost of Ben Solo slip through. She wouldn’t have said a single thing about the Resistance’s location, no matter how drunk she was.

With that worry soothed, Rey sits up. It might be the hardest thing she’s ever done. Her body does not reward her for it. She closes her eyes. Deep breaths. Mind clear. Her mouth is dry and thick with a foul aftertaste.

Water. She needs water.

No, she –

Oh, _kriff_ , she needs to throw up.

She snags a thin elastic tie and secures her hair away from her face with grim acceptance. People have gone to their deaths with more dignity than Rey manages during her stagger across the room. Whatever guilt she feels at the special treatment she receives in the Resistance vanishes as she doubles over in her tiny, _private_ , fresher unit. No one needs to see the galaxy’s last hope for peace hugging a toilet and spewing wave after wave of whatever the _hell_ Poe had poured them all last night.

Once the flood has stemmed, Rey groans weakly. Her eyes and nose are streaming, and her sweat-slick forehead nudges the toilet’s open lid. She’s never speaking to Poe again. He did this, the bastard.

In the time it takes for Rey to get to her feet, the Resistance could have regrouped and won the war. Time doesn’t exist in this miserable state. She feels a little bit better after getting all that evil, evil drink out of her stomach, but she’s nowhere near rid of her hangover. She turns on the sink and lets water pour over her shaking hands. A few careful sips ease the burning in her throat, but the acrid taste of vomit still lingers. She splashes her face a few times with whatever the exact opposite of vigor is. Her arms ache even after these tiny motions.

The urge to drown in self-pity is strong, but Rey spent too long on Jakku to really indulge in feeling sorry for herself now. Whining had never put portions on the table, broken her fevers, unbroken her bones, or brought her parents back –

( _They’re dead, in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert_ )

\- and it certainly wouldn’t fix anything now.

Sleep, however, would work miracles.

Rey turns the faucet off. Her usual joy at such readily accessible water is muted but still present in the back of her mind. She closes the fresher door behind her and tries not to think of the cleaning job she’ll have to do once her hangover has gone.

She’s halfway across the room when she hears a sharp intake of breath.

“What did you _drink_? Evidently not water, like I suggested.”

Any idle hopes Rey might have entertained about Kylo’s visit last night being nothing more than a bad dream fade away. Her heartrate spikes as she turns to face him. Despite his mild incredulity, his features are as blank as one could expect from someone who always seems to be brimming with emotions. The passiveness doesn’t set Rey at ease, precisely, but her instinct to attack settles into a wary watchfulness.

“Go away,” she tells him, because words are hard and she wants her bed.

Kylo quirks an eyebrow. “Stop thinking about me and I will.”

“I’m always thinking about you,” Rey mutters. She isn’t confident in her ability to stand unaided much longer, and can only hope she doesn’t swerve around too much as she walks back to her cot.  “You’re the enemy.”

There’s a few seconds of silence, before:

“Yeah.” Kylo gives a low huff of self-deprecating defeat. “I’m always thinking about you, too.”

It’s best for the confusing thoughts in Rey’s mind if she ignores that, so it’s with her usual impressive level of denial that she pretends she didn’t hear him. She focuses instead on her body protesting its weariness. She sits down on her blankets, but keeps both feet planted firmly on the ground. The promise of sleep is _so close_ , but it isn’t as though she can just snooze with the Supreme Leader of the First Order standing awkwardly around her quarters.

Her fingers squeeze the bottom of her mattress on either side of her knees. The solid weight helps to anchor her to the moment. Everything is temporary. Her hangover, the ache in her limbs, Kylo’s presence, all of it will fade. It’s just her rotten luck that ‘temporary’ seems to be stretching into ‘forever’.

“I have a headache.”

Kylo’s voice is factual, without complaint, but Rey still shoots a glare at her black-clad intruder. He stares back, unflinching and intense in a way Rey has never seen from anyone else.

“All those evil plots getting too loud?” she asks with a bite in her voice.

Something petulant tugs at Kylo’s brow. “I don’t plot.”

Rey almost scoffs. That much, she believes. There’s not a single thing about Kylo Ren that says ‘pre-meditated’.

“And anyway,” Kylo continues in that slow, steady tone of his, “I didn’t have a headache until I came here.”

Rey’s mouth falls open in outrage. “ _I’m_ not the one who –”

“I have a headache,” he interrupts, the rise in his volume making Rey wince, “and I feel sick, and I have the strong urge to never drink again, even though I haven’t touched a drop in years. Sound familiar?”

“Sounds like you have a hangover, too.” The response is quick and without thought. Under Kylo’s heavy gaze, the full implications of his words sink in. Dread steals over Rey. “Even though you don’t drink. And didn’t show any symptoms until the bond opened.”

Oh, this is too much to deal with right now. Rey wants to drag the covers back over her head and sleep until things make sense again. The bond is troublesome enough without its _really inconvenient_ habit of evolving. First physical touch, and now shared physical sensations. Rey needs to get a handle on this before she turns into an accidental spy.

“Have you researched why the bond between us is like this?” she asks.

“No.” Kylo’s smile is humorless. “I’ve been a little busy.”

Rey looks away. No need to ask what he’s been doing; just yesterday, word reached Leia of another planet signing over its liberty to the First Order in exchange for survival. The number of entire planets aligned with the First Order significantly outstrips the number of individual Resistance members.

Maybe that’s why Kylo looks as drawn as he does. Galaxy-conquering must be tiring work.

“Sit down,” Rey says, waving a hand at him. “You look terrible.”

Kylo doesn’t move.

“Is this concern?” he asks, in a voice too flat to be teasing.

“Concern over you throwing up on my things, yes.”

Truth moves Kylo in a way Rey’s perceived softness didn’t. Without taking his eyes off her, Kylo backs away and sits down. In Rey’s quarters, it looks as though he’s perched on her desk. His legs, spread almost indecently wide, almost brush the edge of her metal chair. Rey wonders if he’s sitting on his throne in his end of the bond. The thought turns her cold.

“Don’t worry,” Kylo says. There’s a sardonic edge to the words, as though they both knew he was in no danger of eliciting Rey’s concern. “My symptoms aren’t as bad as yours.”

_Symptoms_. It’s dramatic, but Rey likes it. The word makes it sound as though she has some disease that she can valiantly fight through, instead of the reality where she indulged too much of her own free will and now wants to wail about it.

“So you feel an echo of what I feel?” Rey asks. She can put aside her animosity if it means learning about this connection between them. Any information could lead to a way to block it permanently.

Kylo lifts a shoulder in a listless half-shrug. “Something like that.”

Rey feels a surge of – not sympathy. Just regular human acknowledgement of another human’s suffering. If Kylo only feels a fraction of her hangover, then there must be other reasons for the dark circles beneath his eyes and the way his hands tremble.

_Galaxy-conquering_ , Rey reminds herself. It’s harder in her current state to keep a steady level of vitriol, but she’s let her guard down around Kylo Ren before. She won’t make that mistake again. _Galaxy-conquering is the ‘other reasons’._

She looks back at Kylo, only to see him already staring at her. Rey’s blood heats to see his eyes sweep over her, but Kylo is critical in his appraisal.

“You should go to the nurse and get a hydration shot,” he tells her. He purses his lips and gives her another assessing look. “A vitamin shot, too.”

“Is this concern?” Rey parrots, harsher than his own soft intonation had been.

Kylo’s eyes darken in irritation. “Easing the symptoms at their source might stop me from suffering.”

Well, Rey thinks with more than a little vindictiveness, he’ll just have to suffer. The Resistance’s medical supplies currently consist of a roll of gauze and a mystery bottle of pills found on the Falcon. They’re lucky to have Doctor Kalonia with them, fully equipped or not. Two Resistance scouts, the most Leia could spare at this delicate stage, have been sent to gather more supplies, but they aren’t due back for another few days. That is, if they even find anything. Support for the Resistance has heightened since news of Luke’s sacrifice on Crait (and, Rey acknowledged reluctantly, tales of her own power) spread, but they’re still sorely lacking in allies.

Rey isn’t about to tell Kylo any of that. Let him think that the Resistance he had tried so hard to destroy was already back on its feet and ready to fight, instead of limping along on a broken leg because it couldn’t afford any damn crutches.

When she realizes Kylo is still watching her, Rey shifts on her cot. Now isn’t the time to feel self-conscious, but there’s a very real worry at the back of her mind that she hadn’t managed to clean all of her vomit away. That worry, coupled with the reminder that she shouldn’t care what Kylo Ren thinks of her anyway, sharpens her nerves.

“What?” she asks with a glare.

“How’s your arm?” In a halting, self-conscious motion, Kylo taps his right arm with gloved fingers. “One of the guards in the throne room –”

“Yeah, I was there,” Rey snaps. “I remember.”

Kylo doesn’t rise to her anger. He lowers his hand and rests it on his knee, all the while waiting calmly for Rey’s answer.

_It’s going to scar_ , Rey doesn’t say.

_I hate looking at it_ , Rey doesn’t say.

_It makes me think of you_ , Rey doesn’t say.

She meets his eyes and then looks away.

“It’s fine,” she tells him in a sullen mutter.

Kylo only nods. Rey doesn’t understand why he’d bothered asking in the first place. She hadn’t spared a single thought to wondering how his face was after she’d slashed it open on Starkiller Base. Even now, any questions about his scar feature _very_ far down on the list of things she wants to say to him.

“And –” Kylo’s voice cracks. Rey watches his lips form the words soundlessly before he gathers his courage. “What Snoke did to you…?”

He seems almost afraid to ask. Rey wonders if it’s because of lingering fear of his old master, or shame that it was his own actions that made it possible.

“Hurt,” Rey finishes for him without spite. She doesn’t blame him for Snoke’s violation of her mind. She only blames him for everything after that. “I still feel him in my head, sometimes.” She takes a breath around the nausea rolling in her stomach. “I feel you, too. Snoke’s dead, he’s an echo… but there are times I feel you crawling around in my mind, uninvited but taking things anyway.”

Kylo’s face drains of what little color it had. Rey reads sympathy and shame in the slack line of his mouth. Any other time, she might have continued to dig into Kylo until she could unearth the guilt or regret she knows lurks somewhere within him. As it is, weariness mars the edges of her consciousness. Her only priority now is sleep.

“I know Snoke said that he created the bond,” Kylo says, his voice quiet and uncertain, “but I think that moment in the interrogation room was what really sparked it.”

Rey snorts. “In that case, you deserve this hangover.”

The bond separates them before Rey can discover if Kylo would have laughed. Well, not laughed, he doesn’t seem the sort. Maybe he’d just breathe really quickly out of his nose in a huffing sound, like Rey has heard Leia do more than once.

Rey snaps herself out of those thoughts. If she’s giving this much consideration to Kylo Ren’s theoretical laugh, then the alcohol _definitely_ hasn’t left her system. She just needs to sleep off the weirdness of the last few hours. Once she’s clear-headed, she’ll worry about the bond.

With a grateful groan, Rey drops carefully down into her blanket. She’s asleep in seconds.


End file.
